26 Ottobre 2022
In occasione dell’uscita di When The Wind Forgets Your Name, abbiamo avuto la fortuna di fare due chiacchiere con Doug Martsch, cuore pulsante dei Built to Spill nonché autore di alcune delle tessiture di chitarra più impattanti dei Novanta. L’originario di Twin Falls si è dimostrato un personaggio dimesso e alla mano, con cui discutere del recente passaggio alla storica Sub Pop e della genesi del nuovo disco, lasciando spazio a considerazioni circa il passato e il futuro della band. L’intervista che segue è stata volontariamente lasciata libera da traduzioni di sorta.
After spending most of your career on Warner Bros, did signing to Sub Pop give new life to your artistic journey?
D: I don’t know if I’d go that far. It’s cool, I’m excited about it. Artistically, I don’t know if it would have made much of a difference, I probably would have made the same kind of record no matter where I was. I think they did a great job of releasing the record and promoting it. I think they did a better job than Warner Bros would have done, and it’s just exciting to work with those people, I have got a couple of good friends there and all the other people I’ve met have been really cool. So yeah, it’s been exciting.
How much was the writing process of When The Wind Forgets Your Name influenced by the pandemic? Did it force you to change your approach to composition?
D: Not too much. The songs were all written before the pandemic, I worked on them during the pandemic and one thing was that I did them alone at home. But that wasn’t just because of the pandemic, I had actually planned to do that anyway for the first time ever. I think that if there hadn’t been the pandemic, I probably would have gone on tour and might have procrastinated the record a little bit more. But as far as, you know, the ideas and stuff, most of that was going to be the same no matter what.
Now, moving on to what’s inside the record, it seems there’s more room for psychedelia than in your previous works. Is this mainly due to the presence of Oruã’s members or would it have been like this anyway?
D: I think it would have been like this anyway. The plan was to actually mix it with them, and that was what I was most looking forward to, because I think that if we had been in the same room together to produce it we would have done some more experimental things. But, you know, the psychedelic stuff, I feel like it’s always been kind of a little bit part of Built to Spill, on some records more than others. Definitely, those things were going to be there no matter what.
What’s your favorite song off the new record at the moment, and why?
D: I actually don’t really have one right now. We made the record so long ago that I don’t really think about it too much anymore. Off the top of my head I think the song that I’m most proud of and that I think it’s the best written song on it is “Fool’s Gold”, just from the standpoint of the music and the lyrics, the overall craft of that song.
I read an interview a few years ago where you stated that you don’t feel nostalgic about 90s culture. Now, regardless of personal taste, don’t you regret the attention that music like the one of Built to Spill was receiving during that decade?
D: Built to Spill was always a pretty small band, we never were a band that was going to have mass appeal; maybe we would somehow, but we never did. It feels like today we are even more popular than we were back then in a way, you know, because I see there’s a lot of young people that go to our shows and listen to us, so to me it doesn’t really feel like our popularity or the popularity of our kind of music is really going down.
How come there was a shift regarding the structure of the songs in Perfect From Now On? A simple personal need or a way of adapting to what was happening around you?
D: I think it was a couple of things. Part of it was that I was listening to some music like The Beatles. Part of it was a reaction to the record before, which was There’s Nothing Wrong With Love, made of short pop songs, so I wanted to make something different. Part of it was being on Warner Bros, because I didn’t want to put out a poppy record on Warner Bros; it was our first one there and I wanted to make stuff that was a little more challenging. I was really nervous at the time that Warner Bros was going to try to put us on the radio and kind of shove us down people’s throats, like corporate music companies do. I didn’t want that for Built to Spill. I wanted us to grow slowly and organically, be passed around from people and be important to people, not be something that was just on the radio at that time in my life. Part of it was the songwriting style, where I felt like I had a lot of parts that didn’t make sense to be whole songs or to repeat themselves much. There’s a lot of songs on that record where a part just shows up, then goes to another part and never really comes back again. You know, songs like “Kicked It In The Sun” or “Stop The Show” are long songs, but they unfold part after part, like a medley. As I said, The Beatles were a big influence for me at the time, Abbey Road has that medley of songs feel. It was a lot of different things that made me change the structure.
During the Keep It Like a Secret anniversary tour I managed to see you in a very small venue in Bologna. Of course you’ve also participated in some major festivals over the years. Where would you recommend to go and see Built to Spill, in which kind of stage?
D: I feel like any band is going to have the same differences on those two stages. I think that if you know someone’s music it is fine to go and see them in a stadium, but I feel like if you’re not familiar with band’s music and style yet, it’s better to see them in a little club, because you get a better idea of what they’re really about. You kind of get to hear their instruments more real coming off the stage and get the subtleties of how they play, whereas in a festival everything is coming through the PA, and everything about the instrumentation loses a lot of its character. For instance, you can’t really hear how hard someone’s playing the drums, if they’re playing the snare hard or soft, there’s no dynamics in it. When it’s coming in a festival, everything is compressed and coming at you, whereas in a small room you get a better idea of how the player actually plays. I enjoy it all, I enjoy playing in festivals as much as I enjoy playing in small clubs.
It is well known that bands such as Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth played an important influence on your sound. Is there any modern-day act that has impressed you and pushed you to try something new?
D: Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff. Oruã, the guys that I played with, is a great band. There is a band that I discovered ten years ago called Slam Dunk, one of my favorites and a huge influence for me. There’s a band out of Boise, Idaho right now called Braided Waves that I think is amazing, it really inspires me and pushes me. There’s a lot of stuff out there. We toured with a lot of bands that we love: the band Disco Doom from Switzerland are a band whose new record just blew me away, I love everything they’ve ever done. I go to shows every once in a while, I go to festivals, and I see all the time new bands that I totally love and influence me.
What’s next for Doug Martsch?
D: Surely more touring with Melanie and Teresa, my current rhythm section people. We’ll be over in Europe hopefully at the beginning of next summer, tour the US a bit, maybe go to a couple of other places, and hopefully start working on some new music with these ladies. I have some songs laying around that need some work and some words; it will be fun to jam with those two and see what comes out of it because they’re really amazing. Eventually, I’ll be playing music as much as I can.